Biochemistry is a rich source of
important computational problems that should be of
interest to mathematicians, computer scientists and
engineers. The dramatic drop in the cost of sequencing
DNA as well as progress in several structural genomics
initiatives have created many new and exciting
opportunities.

MA 490 Bioinformatics / CHEM 470
Computational Biochemistry is an interdisciplinary
course that will be team taught by Professors Brandt and
Shibberu. The course will cover topics from:

sequence bioinformatics

structural bioinformatics

molecular interactions and drug design.

The theme running throughout the
course will be the molecular basis of disease. We will
use mathematical analysis and computational algorithms
using insulin as a model system.

The prerequisite for the course is
MA 212 Mat Alg Sys DE.All the concepts needed from
biochemistry will be introduced during the course.

Structure of the human insulin
monomer (from PDB ID 1MSO). Insulin is an important
signalling molecule in many species. The common
disorder diabetes mellitus is caused by either absence
of or lack of response to insulin

Insulin family sequence logo,
showing the relative likelihood of different amino
acids at different places in the sequence. The
sequence logo was constructed using partial sequences
from human, rabbit, horse, sheep, pig, chicken,
alligator, and cod insulin proteins.